Speaker 1: You can now pay to follow people on Twitter. Microsoft
Speaker 1: gives us a launch date for Windows eleven. Apple's digital
Speaker 1: Driver's license lands in two states, with more to come.
Speaker 1: Plus your tech questions answered. What's going on? I'm Rich
Speaker 1: Damiro and this is Rich on Tech, the podcast where
Speaker 1: I talk about the tech stuff I think you should
Speaker 1: know about. It's also the place where I answer the
Speaker 1: questions you send me. My name, once again is Rich Dmiro,
Speaker 1: tech reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles. I
Speaker 1: hope you are having a fantastic day, although as I
Speaker 1: record this, it's one of the earlier, earlier times right now,
Speaker 1: but I'm having a good day. It is. It's always,
Speaker 1: you know, it's always fun. I really look forward to
Speaker 1: the podcast because I feel like it's a real dedicated
Speaker 1: group of listeners that I really like to hear, kind
Speaker 1: of the extended version of the things that I talk
Speaker 1: about on TV or on my tweets or on my
Speaker 1: Facebook page. And so it was fun. Last week I
Speaker 1: was in Las Vegas, so I'm sure you heard a little.
Speaker 1: The show sounded just a little different. I thought it
Speaker 1: sounded okay. I listened to some of it just to
Speaker 1: hear how it sounded. I thought it was good. I
Speaker 1: was in Las Vegas for two things, the fifty thousand
Speaker 1: dollars folding House, which got a lot of play on TV.
Speaker 1: People loved it on the web. So many questions, so
Speaker 1: many questions. I didn't have the answers any of the questions.
Speaker 1: People are asking me about plumbing, and people are asking
Speaker 1: me about foundations, and I don't know all. All I
Speaker 1: know is I want one of those in my backyard.
Speaker 1: I would love to have an ADU like that in
Speaker 1: my backyard. It's this fifty thousand dollars foldable house, basically
Speaker 1: their twist on modular homes. And I think I mentioned
Speaker 1: this last week is that they make it eight feet across,
Speaker 1: which doesn't require any special wide load signs or trucks
Speaker 1: when you're bringing it down the highway, and so once
Speaker 1: they get it on site, they unfold it it becomes
Speaker 1: this great little casita. So I really really really want
Speaker 1: one of those, but I'm sure I'm one of one
Speaker 1: hundred thousand other people that want it as well. I
Speaker 1: was also in Vegas for the Flyover Ride, which we
Speaker 1: aired on KTLA today, and it's this ride that's basically
Speaker 1: like Disney's California Soarin or the old Back to the
Speaker 1: Future ride if you're of a certain age at Universal
Speaker 1: Now it's called the Simpsons Ride, but it's the same thing.
Speaker 1: You sit in these chairs and they kind of move
Speaker 1: in front of this big giant screen in front of you.
Speaker 1: This one in Vegas is a little bit more modern
Speaker 1: because it was recorded in eight K and it was
Speaker 1: also you know, it has like six axes of movement
Speaker 1: instead of just two that the traditional rides have. I
Speaker 1: thought it was great. I thought it was very exciting.
Speaker 1: My wife and kids watched the story today, They're like,
Speaker 1: we need to go there. We need to go and
Speaker 1: go on that ride. And so I never wanted to
Speaker 1: bring my kids to Vegas, honestly, Like it was just
Speaker 1: one of those things where like, I don't bring my
Speaker 1: kids to Vegas. You know, it's an adult place. And
Speaker 1: now as they get older and my kids get older,
Speaker 1: and I'm kind of I mean, they're not that old,
Speaker 1: but you know, as I need to find things to
Speaker 1: do with them, I'm like, we could find some stuff
Speaker 1: to do with the kids in Vegas. And so there
Speaker 1: are a lot of things you can do there. I
Speaker 1: mean there's like I looked up I've been keeping a
Speaker 1: list of like all the different things that kids can
Speaker 1: do in Las Vegas. You know, I keep away the
Speaker 1: gambling and all the other little cards that they hand
Speaker 1: out on the streets, if you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: But there's like a Neon museum. They would love Circus Circus,
Speaker 1: even though I wouldn't typically go there, but they would
Speaker 1: love this flyover ride. They would love the aquarium at
Speaker 1: the at the Mandalai Bay, they would love the pool
Speaker 1: at the Mandalai Bay. Just seeing the sites would be
Speaker 1: really fun. So there's definitely a lot. We'll plan a
Speaker 1: trip at one of these points. I don't think right
Speaker 1: now is the time, but maybe once we get through
Speaker 1: a little bit of this situation that's happening in the world,
Speaker 1: we can go. Also, if you watch me on KTLA,
Speaker 1: new studio made its debut, which was really cool. They've
Speaker 1: been working on this studio that I used to use,
Speaker 1: same room, but they kind of they brought it down
Speaker 1: to the beams and then built a brand new studio.
Speaker 1: That's really cool because I mean, I love these people
Speaker 1: that know how to do this stuff because I don't.
Speaker 1: But they made it so that there's like a bunch
Speaker 1: of different angles and it looks so much better on TV,
Speaker 1: and like, I can shoot my stories in there, and
Speaker 1: it's just really really cool. So I'm excited for that,
Speaker 1: and I'm excited about our first story from Twitter. Uh.
Speaker 1: They introduced a feature this week called super Follows. The
Speaker 1: name of the game with all these social media networks
Speaker 1: right now is like, are you gonna pay me? It's
Speaker 1: like show me the money? Remember that movie back in
Speaker 1: the day, Jerry Maguire, Show Me the Money. So we've
Speaker 1: been doing and I say we as like, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm in with all the creators out there, but you know,
Speaker 1: creators have been putting out content on these various social
Speaker 1: media I networks like Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and
Speaker 1: what's the other one, TikTok and YouTube and some of
Speaker 1: them pay, some of them don't. But the reality is
Speaker 1: people want to make money if you're if you're building
Speaker 1: a living on these various social media sites. And I
Speaker 1: think that a lot of them have come up with
Speaker 1: some pretty unique ways. I don't think it's there just yet,
Speaker 1: because well let me talk about this real quick. The
Speaker 1: super Follows. So what it is is, it's basically, if
Speaker 1: I'm a creator on Twitter, I can charge you either
Speaker 1: three dollars, four dollars or ten dollars a month to
Speaker 1: follow me and get my exclusive content, so I can
Speaker 1: do exclusive tweets, I can do, you know, whatever whatever
Speaker 1: I want to do, I can do behind the scenes,
Speaker 1: you know, early previews, subscriber only conversations. So like if
Speaker 1: you're a subscriber to me and I have like a tweet,
Speaker 1: I would look through the replies and you know pick,
Speaker 1: I guess respond to the people that are my super
Speaker 1: followers because they get that extra little thing. So will
Speaker 1: this work? I don't know. I mean, I think that three, four,
Speaker 1: ten dollars is not that much, but it is when
Speaker 1: you add it up to everything else. I mean ten dollars.
Speaker 1: I mean you're talking that's Netflix level. Now. I think
Speaker 1: some of this may be in response to sort of
Speaker 1: what OnlyFans is doing, and I think, I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't know what the rules are on Twitter when it
Speaker 1: comes to material like that, but I feel like this
Speaker 1: could be part of that business, you know, where if
Speaker 1: you're a someone who's you know, might go to only fans.
Speaker 1: Now you have this on Twitter. It's just a little
Speaker 1: bit easier. It's a broader platform. It's simpler. You can
Speaker 1: have regular followers and super followers. So it's interesting. Now
Speaker 1: this adds to the Twitter's other features called tip Jar,
Speaker 1: which lets you just tip anyone on Twitter if they
Speaker 1: were able to sign up for that, and then ticketed spaces,
Speaker 1: which is kind of like what I'm doing on Facebook
Speaker 1: right now, which is my podcast Live, but I would
Speaker 1: charge people to listen to that, which you know, again,
Speaker 1: I talk about this in my podcast all the time.
Speaker 1: I am employed by a TV station and so that
Speaker 1: is where I make my living, and so all this
Speaker 1: other stuff I do, when it comes to my podcast
Speaker 1: and my YouTube and my Facebook and my Instagram, it's
Speaker 1: not really a big it's not a big charge for
Speaker 1: me to like monetize those platforms because my living is
Speaker 1: made on TV and through a regular job. So it's
Speaker 1: more of just kind of accenting all that stuff, I guess,
Speaker 1: complementing all of the things that I do on TV,
Speaker 1: like by tweeting and by doing all this stuff. So
Speaker 1: but I think this is really cool. I think it's
Speaker 1: really neat that that creative people have a way to
Speaker 1: monetize what they're doing. I mean, can you imagine if
Speaker 1: you had a million followers on Twitter, and you could
Speaker 1: charge three dollars to your most dedicated followers, whoever wants
Speaker 1: to do that. And now let's say you get one
Speaker 1: hundred thousand of them. Well, let's say you just get
Speaker 1: ten thousand of them out of a million. That's thirty
Speaker 1: thousand dollars a month. I mean, that's a pretty good
Speaker 1: living for just tweeting. So they're starting with four people.
Speaker 1: A makeup artist, a let's see as someone who's like
Speaker 1: a comedian I gues, a sports guy, and an astrologist.
Speaker 1: So those are the four people you can also apply
Speaker 1: to be to offer up a super follow subscription, it's
Speaker 1: a wait list, which means aka, good luck. You have
Speaker 1: to have ten thousand or more followers, be at least
Speaker 1: eighteen years old, and have tweeted twenty five times in
Speaker 1: the last thirty days in the US. And if you
Speaker 1: want to subscribe to someone, you can go to their
Speaker 1: profile and there's like a little subscribe button that you
Speaker 1: can press. So this is only available on iOS right
Speaker 1: now and Android and Twitter are coming soon. Twitter dot
Speaker 1: Com and Twitter says, don't worry, public tweets are not
Speaker 1: going anywhere all right, Let's get to the first question
Speaker 1: of the day, Shelley says, I've been using unroll me
Speaker 1: for getting rid of unwanted emails. It is just not
Speaker 1: kept up like it had any suggestions for another app
Speaker 1: to help clear those unwanted spam email, preferably free TiO a,
Speaker 1: which it took me a minute to realize that means
Speaker 1: thanks in advance, Shelley sent for my iPad. So, Shelley,
Speaker 1: unroll me. UH was kind of the de facto standard
Speaker 1: when it comes to unwanted emails. And they were purchased
Speaker 1: by I don't know how you say this, but it's Raccotin.
Speaker 1: It's an intelligence company, and so what they're doing is
Speaker 1: they're doing a service for you where they are scanning
Speaker 1: your emails. You have to give them approval to go
Speaker 1: inside your email box, which some people may not be
Speaker 1: comfortable with UH, and I would be very weary about
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's weary or what's the what's
Speaker 1: the term when you're you just gotta be careful when
Speaker 1: you give unfettered access to your Gmail right or your
Speaker 1: email account because there could be problems there. But these companies,
Speaker 1: you know, if they're on the up and up, like
Speaker 1: unroll me, as a legitimate company. So anyway, they go
Speaker 1: into your email box, they scan it all, they look
Speaker 1: for emails that are subscription emails, and then they present
Speaker 1: you with those and they say, do you want to
Speaker 1: unsubscribe to these? And you can do that. It's easy,
Speaker 1: it's simple. They take care of it. But in the meantime,
Speaker 1: in the background, what they're doing it's a data play.
Speaker 1: So they're now actually also analyzing all your receipts from
Speaker 1: Uber and all your Target receipts and whatever things they
Speaker 1: can find in there that can help them come up
Speaker 1: with data, and that data they then sell to other people.
Speaker 1: So they can say, oh, a lot of people are
Speaker 1: traveling to Milwaukee right now, and here's how we know
Speaker 1: this because we have we saw a bunch of travel
Speaker 1: receipts to Milwaukee. And by the way, flights there are
Speaker 1: generally two hundred and fifty dollars. A lot of people
Speaker 1: are buying this doll from Target right now, and so
Speaker 1: again they're getting all this data. So that's the main one.
Speaker 1: I don't know why it stopped working for you, because
Speaker 1: nothing has changed with them. But what I would do
Speaker 1: in this case is I'm not familiar with any other
Speaker 1: of these sites, but I would use the old versus search,
Speaker 1: and so I did unroll me Versus and there's one
Speaker 1: called clean Fox, and there's one called Mailstrom, and I
Speaker 1: looked up Mailstrom, and I thought that one actually seemed
Speaker 1: pretty good. The other one, the Fox one, is like
Speaker 1: out of the UK, so it may not be as
Speaker 1: good here in the US. But mail Strom looks pretty
Speaker 1: legit and it says unsubscribing to delete thousands of messages
Speaker 1: in just a few clicks. Now, if I'm doing my
Speaker 1: due diligence on this, uh, if I'm looking at you
Speaker 1: know this, I'm kind of looking at the pricing, I'm
Speaker 1: looking at their Twitter. I'm just looking to make sure
Speaker 1: that they are legit. And so for your free trial,
Speaker 1: you get five thousand emails. Basic you is nine dollars
Speaker 1: a month or sixty dollars a year. So you can
Speaker 1: try this one out, but it's a little more expensive.
Speaker 1: So they just tweeted a couple of weeks ago, and
Speaker 1: so I think that they look pretty trustworthy. They've you know,
Speaker 1: they're from Baltimore, Maryland. So that's the one that I
Speaker 1: would take a look at. Is is Mailstrom M A
Speaker 1: I L S T R O M and unroll me.
Speaker 1: I used unroll me when I when I did a
Speaker 1: story on it a while back, and it was fine.
Speaker 1: I just don't really like giving access to my email
Speaker 1: account to a lot of places because it's just it's
Speaker 1: a little tricky. And if you ever want to see
Speaker 1: who you who has access to your email, all you
Speaker 1: have to do is go to Google third Party Permissions
Speaker 1: and there's a you go to my account dot Google
Speaker 1: dot com slash permissions and you can see which third
Speaker 1: party apps have access to your account. So I can
Speaker 1: tell yeah, see, there's a lot of these that have Yes, see,
Speaker 1: I can see what has access to Google Drive. All okay,
Speaker 1: So a lot of these games that my kids play
Speaker 1: have access to Google Play, which I don't like. Ooh see,
Speaker 1: I don't like this one. Oh see this one. This
Speaker 1: is bad. This is really bad. So I just found
Speaker 1: one that my kid gave access to somehow on my phone.
Speaker 1: Kicked the buddy has access to Google Drive ooh see,
Speaker 1: and delete its own configuration data and Google Drive. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's okay. Its own configuration data is okay, but I'm
Speaker 1: still removing access to that. You really want to be
Speaker 1: careful when it says has access to full Google Drive.
Speaker 1: So see edit create and delete all of your Google
Speaker 1: Drive files. That's the red flag. You got to be
Speaker 1: sure you trust this trip. It also has access to
Speaker 1: my full Gmail, but I like that because they scan
Speaker 1: my Gmail to look for any reservation thing. So anyway,
Speaker 1: my account dot Google dot com slash permissions. I know
Speaker 1: I went off on a tangent, but I think that's
Speaker 1: really important to go through there and to make sure
Speaker 1: that these websites that you authorize with your Google account
Speaker 1: don't have permission forever if you don't need that. All right,
Speaker 1: let's get to the next story. Windows eleven available on
Speaker 1: October fifth. Microsoft announced that it will be a free
Speaker 1: upgrade to eligible Windows ten PCs, and also PCs that
Speaker 1: come preloaded with Windows eleven will be available for purchase
Speaker 1: on that day. So little background on Windows eleven not
Speaker 1: a huge It doesn't look like a lot of huge changes.
Speaker 1: But again we're just seeing this slow evolution to things
Speaker 1: looking more modern, more clean, more fresh, you know, more
Speaker 1: simple designs. The sounds bring you a sense of calm
Speaker 1: and ease, which is cool. The start menu is at
Speaker 1: the center now of the screen instead of on the side,
Speaker 1: and that's mainly because monitors are getting bigger and different
Speaker 1: and different configurations, and it's just easier for the start
Speaker 1: menu to be in one place. All these kind of
Speaker 1: like snap layout things are also built in. I love
Speaker 1: this little app on my Mac called Rectangle, which helps
Speaker 1: me move windows to different places on my screen, like
Speaker 1: the left half, the center half, the bottom half, the
Speaker 1: top half, the top left, the top right, the bottom right,
Speaker 1: the first third, the second third, maximize center. So I
Speaker 1: love having that ability because a lot of times on
Speaker 1: my MacBook, I've got the sixteen inch MacBook Pro, I
Speaker 1: want to put one window as a third of the
Speaker 1: entire screen, and then another window as a quarter of
Speaker 1: the entire screen, and so this lets me really easily
Speaker 1: do that. And so Windows has had similar things like
Speaker 1: the I think it was called Snap, but it was
Speaker 1: more limited. This is much more robust in how you
Speaker 1: can arrange your Windows. They also built Microsoft Teams integrated
Speaker 1: into the taskbar. There's widgets, and the one feature that
Speaker 1: will not be launching is Android apps. They said they
Speaker 1: were going to be able to run on Windows eleven,
Speaker 1: but it looks like that ran into a roadblock, and
Speaker 1: so now Microsoft says we look forward to continuing our
Speaker 1: journey to bring Android apps to Windows eleven and the
Speaker 1: Microsoft Store through our collaboration with Amazon and Intel. This
Speaker 1: will start with a preview for Windows insiders over the
Speaker 1: coming months. And so what that means is that a
Speaker 1: lot of people will not be getting that from day one.
Speaker 1: It looks like it's delayed until twenty twenty two. From
Speaker 1: everything I was reading, the free upgrade starts on October
Speaker 1: fifth to Windows eleven, but that does not mean that
Speaker 1: you have to upgrade on that day. Now, if you're
Speaker 1: a nerd like me, of course you cannot wait for
Speaker 1: something like this to come out. And of course I
Speaker 1: will be upgrading the Windows laptop that I have, and
Speaker 1: I can't wait to see all the changes and what's new.
Speaker 1: I've not been running the beta or whatever the tester
Speaker 1: version is that they put out. But if you are
Speaker 1: eligible for the upgrade, eventually your computer will give you
Speaker 1: a little notification that says, hey, you can upgrade to
Speaker 1: Windows eleven if you want, or if you're a real nerd,
Speaker 1: you can actually go to your settings and then Windows
Speaker 1: Update and then check for updates and you can see
Speaker 1: if it's ready for your device. But Microsoft is giving
Speaker 1: this a long runway they say most eligible devices will
Speaker 1: be offered the upgrade by mid twenty twenty two. So
Speaker 1: that does not mean, you know, they're not going to
Speaker 1: just put out this to every PC on day one.
Speaker 1: They say they're going to roll this out based on
Speaker 1: intelligence that consider hardware eligibility, reliability metrics, the age of device,
Speaker 1: and other facts that impact the upgrade experience. So if
Speaker 1: you have a really old computer, Microsoft's not going to
Speaker 1: push Windows eleven on you day one because they're like, look,
Speaker 1: we're gonna let this person kind of you know, sit
Speaker 1: with their computer they've got and we'll we'll offer it
Speaker 1: to them last because we figure since they've got in
Speaker 1: a computer that's seven years old, they probably aren't really
Speaker 1: looking to upgrade to Windows eleven on the first day.
Speaker 1: Whether and if you have like a really nice, high
Speaker 1: powered computer, they're thinking, Okay, this is gonna download fast,
Speaker 1: this is going to run fast. Let's get this to
Speaker 1: this person. They seem like they're more of a power user.
Speaker 1: So it's a smart way to do it. But the
Speaker 1: real nerds will find it no matter what. So it
Speaker 1: really doesn't matter. That's for the average person that is
Speaker 1: just you know, sitting there looking at their computer and saying, oh,
Speaker 1: Windows eleven is available. I'll click the X on that
Speaker 1: notification because I'm just gonna stick with what I know
Speaker 1: for as long as humanly possible. If you want to
Speaker 1: do that, If you don't want to upgrade at all,
Speaker 1: you can stick with Windows ten. Microsoft says they're going
Speaker 1: to support Windows ten through October fourteenth, twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get to the next question. Larry says,
Speaker 1: I'm going on a big trip at the end of September.
Speaker 1: I got a new smaller slash, lighter weight yet powerful.
Speaker 1: I need a new smaller, slash, lighter weight, yet powerful
Speaker 1: phone charger for my LG Android phone. Got a couple
Speaker 1: of recommendations something pocket sized, thanks sent from Yahoo Male
Speaker 1: on Android. And my thing is to just go with Anchor,
Speaker 1: a n K er. So if you go on Amazon
Speaker 1: and you search Anchor, you will find the Anchor power Core.
Speaker 1: The one that I would recommend is the ten thousand.
Speaker 1: It's small, it's compact, it fits in your pocket. Oh,
Speaker 1: it actually comes in different colors now, so you can
Speaker 1: get it in white, red, blue, or black. This thing
Speaker 1: has sixty two and forty six ratings on Amazon. A
Speaker 1: lot of people have purchased this thing and they continue
Speaker 1: to purchase it. And it's small. It's small, it's lightweight.
Speaker 1: It's going to charge a Samsung probably twice. Sorry, you
Speaker 1: have an LG, so it's probably gonna charge it twice. Now,
Speaker 1: the thing I don't like about this, you're it's a
Speaker 1: little bit cheaper. They have They have various versions, so
Speaker 1: it kind of depends what's important to you. For me,
Speaker 1: I ideally would like a USB C in and out
Speaker 1: and that's going to be just a little bit more
Speaker 1: costly than this this one. So this one looks like
Speaker 1: it's micro USB for the input and then it's USB
Speaker 1: for the output. It says USBC on here, but I
Speaker 1: guess you can use the USBC cable like on the
Speaker 1: other end to charge your phone. So anyway, the main
Speaker 1: thing to know about this is look for the type
Speaker 1: of connector you want. If you're going USBC to USBC,
Speaker 1: that's going to be the fastest for charging your Android device.
Speaker 1: USB A to USBC is going to be just a
Speaker 1: little bit slower. And yeah, that's basically it. And then
Speaker 1: ten thousand million hours is going to be a smaller device,
Speaker 1: but the larger that number, So Let's say you go
Speaker 1: with a twenty thousand million amp hour battery, You're gonna
Speaker 1: get more charges on your phone. So if you're going
Speaker 1: on a big trip, I'm guessing you're gonna be out
Speaker 1: and about for the whole day. Let's say you're going
Speaker 1: to Italy or Europe or something, so you want to
Speaker 1: have this in your pocket so that if your phone
Speaker 1: dies from all the pictures you're taken and all the
Speaker 1: GPS and stuff, you can easily charge it. This would
Speaker 1: give you basically two charges of your phone, and I
Speaker 1: think that would be enough for one day because you
Speaker 1: also have the charges on your like the charge on
Speaker 1: your phone, so that would give you basically three times
Speaker 1: the use of your smartphone, which I think is pretty
Speaker 1: pretty legit. So that's what I would recommend. If you
Speaker 1: want a bigger device, just go with more millionamp hours.
Speaker 1: Twenty thousand would probably give you like four charges, but
Speaker 1: again that's gonna be a much bigger device, So it's
Speaker 1: always a push and pull with this kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: You just have to as long as you know what
Speaker 1: you're getting into. That's really the best thing. Now. Mofi
Speaker 1: also makes excellent charging cases, or I should say charging
Speaker 1: They used to do a lot of charging cases, not
Speaker 1: so much any more, but a lot of charging bricks.
Speaker 1: And so that's a brand if you if you really
Speaker 1: want a good brand, that's another good brand. But they're
Speaker 1: going to be a little bit more expensive than Anchor.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you can even get one from Amazon Basics
Speaker 1: on Amazon's website if you really want to go cheap,
Speaker 1: but with batteries and stuff, I would go with brands
Speaker 1: that I trust, and I've tested both Anchor and Mophi,
Speaker 1: and those are the two that I really like. Next
Speaker 1: story up is Apple announced the first states to get
Speaker 1: the digital driver's Licenses and Apple Wallet. So the first
Speaker 1: two states that you will be able to scan your
Speaker 1: license and store it in your iPhone will be Arizona
Speaker 1: and Georgia. This is a huge deal. Now they kind
Speaker 1: of talk about they don't really talk about where you
Speaker 1: can use this ID right now. They're saying just they
Speaker 1: only mention the TSA. So if you're you know, at
Speaker 1: a liquor store or you know, you know, trying to
Speaker 1: get into anything that requires ID, I don't know if
Speaker 1: you'll be able to use this. Let's say you get
Speaker 1: pulled over and you got to show your your ID.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that the police would accept the ID
Speaker 1: driver's license on your phone just yet. Now maybe they will. Maybe.
Speaker 1: When I looked up Arizona and Georgia, it seems like
Speaker 1: they already have a digital driver's license program that's existing,
Speaker 1: it just wasn't integrated with the iPhone and Apple Wallet
Speaker 1: as deeply. So maybe you can in those states just
Speaker 1: show your digital license. I'm not sure. Here in California,
Speaker 1: we don't have this ability just yet, but the next
Speaker 1: states to roll this out are Connecticut, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Oklahoma,
Speaker 1: and Utah. They will be next. So here's how this works.
Speaker 1: You scan your driver's license with your iPhone, and then
Speaker 1: you take a selfie and you move your face around
Speaker 1: and somehow, with that combination the one two punch, your
Speaker 1: state figures out that you are who you say you are.
Speaker 1: And now you have a digital copy of your driver's
Speaker 1: license or your state ID in Apple Wallet. And then
Speaker 1: when you want to present it, you can just double
Speaker 1: tap or you can just double click your Interesting it
Speaker 1: says you can just tap your iPhone. Okay, I'm guessing
Speaker 1: if it's still access the wallet. Of course, you double
Speaker 1: click the SERI button. On your iPhone, which will bring
Speaker 1: up your Apple Wallet and you pull your ID, you
Speaker 1: select that, and then you don't show that to the
Speaker 1: TSA person. You actually just tap your phone to a reader.
Speaker 1: And I really like this for a lot of reasons.
Speaker 1: So I was in Target the other day we happen
Speaker 1: to be buying a bottle of wine, and I just
Speaker 1: think it's really funny that at a place like Target, I,
Speaker 1: who is mister privacy centric, just hand over my ID
Speaker 1: to this random cashier that then looks at all the
Speaker 1: information on my ID, where I live, how old I am,
Speaker 1: my date of birth, you know, my height, my weight, everything,
Speaker 1: and they just type in my day to birth and
Speaker 1: you know, send me on my merry way. So I
Speaker 1: always found that really interesting that we just hand over
Speaker 1: our IDs to so many random people, right, And so
Speaker 1: what Apple is saying that this is actually more secure
Speaker 1: because when you tap your phone to that little reader,
Speaker 1: it's actually just verified the information that the TSA needs
Speaker 1: to give that person a green light check. Now I'm
Speaker 1: guessing it also somehow displays my picture because it's that's
Speaker 1: the only information it needs to link me up to
Speaker 1: what's on my phone. But in the background, it's verifying. Okay,
Speaker 1: this is this person's date of birth that checks out,
Speaker 1: this person is clear to fly today that checks out.
Speaker 1: And this person's name matches their ticket that checks out.
Speaker 1: We don't need to show the agent any of that information.
Speaker 1: All we need to show you is, hey, does this
Speaker 1: person's picture look like who they say they are? Cool,
Speaker 1: because we've verified all the other stuff on our own
Speaker 1: on the back end. So I think that's really powerful,
Speaker 1: especially if some retailers start to accept this tap as
Speaker 1: the preferred way of showing your ID, because it does
Speaker 1: make things a lot more safe and secure for people.
Speaker 1: There's also potential for fraud, and I think that Apple
Speaker 1: and all these states that are allowing this probably understand that,
Speaker 1: and they've probably thought through some of these scenarios that
Speaker 1: people can try to get over on. And I think that,
Speaker 1: you know, that's above my pay grade. I mean, I
Speaker 1: have to just trust that they figured out that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. But Apple, when it comes to security and privacy,
Speaker 1: says Apple and the states do not know where or
Speaker 1: when users are presenting their IDs, which is kind of surprising.
Speaker 1: I would think that they would get a list of that,
Speaker 1: but you know, for tracking purposes, for later on, but
Speaker 1: you know, maybe not. And they also support this mobile standard.
Speaker 1: So just because Apple is out front on this does
Speaker 1: not mean that this will not come to Android. In fact,
Speaker 1: I have no doubt this feature will will be on
Speaker 1: Android at some point. It's just not there just yet
Speaker 1: as far as I know. So I think this is great.
Speaker 1: I'm very excited about this. I can't wait till it
Speaker 1: comes to California because you know, my goal is to
Speaker 1: get rid of my wallet. And I did a little
Speaker 1: video on my Instagram about this little Apple mag Safe
Speaker 1: wallet that I was attaching to my iPhone and it
Speaker 1: was great. I used it in Vegas. But there are
Speaker 1: pros and cons to that. It's a little bulky on
Speaker 1: my phone, and some times it's just easier for me
Speaker 1: to carry my wallet because I can carry more cards.
Speaker 1: But I like the idea that eventually I will be cashless.
Speaker 1: I will be just tap to pay and tap to ID.
Speaker 1: That is a really interesting future. Laurie says, Hey, Rich,
Speaker 1: I want to take my son's pictures and video from
Speaker 1: his wedding off of my Mac. What do you suggest
Speaker 1: I use to back up these pictures on an external drive?
Speaker 1: Thanks so much, Lori Well, Laurie, I would recommend a
Speaker 1: couple of things. Number One, I don't think you should
Speaker 1: just have them on an external drive. I think that's
Speaker 1: a good place to have them, but I don't think
Speaker 1: that that's the only place, and so that's pretty easy.
Speaker 1: I mean, what I would do is just get a
Speaker 1: Seagate drive or you know, or a Western Digital drive
Speaker 1: on Amazon. They're both basically the same price. Let me
Speaker 1: see how much of those are going for. So if
Speaker 1: I go a Seagate portable two terabyte external hard drive
Speaker 1: USB three three point zero is sixty dollars on the Mac,
Speaker 1: you probably don't even need two terabytes. You probably only
Speaker 1: need one terabyte, which is fifty dollars. So you get
Speaker 1: one of those, you plug it into the Mac, you
Speaker 1: drag everything over onto the drive, and you are done. Now.
Speaker 1: I would not stop there. I would also upload these
Speaker 1: pictures to a cloud service, and with that cloud service,
Speaker 1: my personal preferred would be Google Photos. And the reason
Speaker 1: why I like Google Photos is because once these pictures
Speaker 1: from the wedding and videos are in there, you can
Speaker 1: now go through and give names to the faces in
Speaker 1: those photos and videos. And so if you want to
Speaker 1: see all the pictures of Edna at the wedding. You
Speaker 1: can click Edna's face and now you see all the
Speaker 1: pictures of her, and you can send those off to her,
Speaker 1: or make a book about them, or you know, print
Speaker 1: them out, whatever you want to do. So it just
Speaker 1: gives you more flexibility with organizing those photos. It also
Speaker 1: just gives you another place to store those photos. Let's
Speaker 1: say this little portable drive that you get brakes or
Speaker 1: you know who knows you lose it, there's still at
Speaker 1: least you have a copy on Google Photos. Now, on
Speaker 1: Google Photos, the default is this, uh well, actually, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what the default is anymore, but I
Speaker 1: would use the original resolution on Google Photos because you
Speaker 1: don't want to lose any quality with these pictures, because
Speaker 1: you know, these are precious. These are pictures that your
Speaker 1: son had at his wedding, and you don't want to
Speaker 1: lose those, that's for sure. All right, let's get to
Speaker 1: the next story. This is something that I got a
Speaker 1: lot of emails about. Low Cast is shutting down. So
Speaker 1: low cast is this streaming service that lets you stream
Speaker 1: local channels and it was pretty cool for people that
Speaker 1: used it because it was kind of a stop gap
Speaker 1: between antenna and the streaming services. Now in many cities,
Speaker 1: the streaming services include all the channels that you want.
Speaker 1: Here in Los Angeles, KTLA is not on streaming services
Speaker 1: except our own. And so when we were not on
Speaker 1: any streaming service, how do you get us? Well, you
Speaker 1: had to have an antenna or cable, and so a
Speaker 1: lot of people turned to different solutions, you know, watching
Speaker 1: us on the web. I think we were on low Cast,
Speaker 1: although I'm not really sure if KTLA was on there
Speaker 1: because I never used it. But my mom did in
Speaker 1: New York, New Jersey, and she liked watching Channel seven ABC,
Speaker 1: and the only way to get it without an antenna,
Speaker 1: well that she didn't have to pay too much for
Speaker 1: was low Cast, and so we set her up with that.
Speaker 1: It was like a five fifty a month you pay,
Speaker 1: and it was great. She loved it. It worked great well.
Speaker 1: They basically shut down overnight, and so in all these
Speaker 1: cities including Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Cleveland, Columbus, Orlando,
Speaker 1: New York, LA, Miami, Madison, Sacramento, San Francisco, Seattle, Tri cities.
Speaker 1: In Washington is that where I used to live, Yakoma area,
Speaker 1: Tampa Bay. It shut down overnight, so boom, it's gone done.
Speaker 1: So the big networks ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC they
Speaker 1: did a copyright infringement lawsuit. This is according to the
Speaker 1: Streamable website. And they said, Nah, you can't do this.
Speaker 1: This is our stuff. You can't just sell it, you
Speaker 1: can't resell it, you can't say that you're putting up
Speaker 1: antenna's and just send this to people's houses, because we
Speaker 1: have our own streaming services and we want to control this.
Speaker 1: And so I'm not going to get into the nitty
Speaker 1: gritty of whether I think they're right or wrong, but
Speaker 1: this is the reality that we're in. Other startups have
Speaker 1: tried this. They have. There was another one. I can't
Speaker 1: remember what the name was, like Arable or Arrow or
Speaker 1: something like that, but it was a company that put
Speaker 1: tiny antennas on roofs, like a farm of antennas. And
Speaker 1: their argument was that no, no, we're just we're just putting
Speaker 1: we're just selling antennas to people virtually, and we're just
Speaker 1: giving the stream from that antenna to people's computers or
Speaker 1: their phone. And again, the court was not having it,
Speaker 1: and so they shut that down. It took a little
Speaker 1: bit longer for low casts. That was actually kind of
Speaker 1: impressed how long they survived. It's been a couple of
Speaker 1: years for sure, but they are now shut down. And
Speaker 1: so a lot of people emailing me rich, which what
Speaker 1: do I do? How do I watch my local stations?
Speaker 1: And I said, I can't help you with that. I mean,
Speaker 1: all the local stations in LA are on streaming services. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're just way more expensive to access. And when it
Speaker 1: comes to KTLA, there's it's a no brainer. We have
Speaker 1: a free ktla plus app that you can download to Roku,
Speaker 1: Apple TV and also Fire TV, so you can get us.
Speaker 1: And quite honestly, that's all I care about, because that's
Speaker 1: why I work for and to me, that's what I'm watching.
Speaker 1: If I'm watching local news and all the shows that
Speaker 1: you get on the other networks, you know, like if
Speaker 1: you're watching a show on ABC, NBC, CBS, whatever, a
Speaker 1: lot of those are available on the streaming services, and
Speaker 1: so I get it. Yeah, this is definitely not ideal,
Speaker 1: but it's going to force a lot of people to
Speaker 1: subscribe to more expensive streaming services. But this is you know,
Speaker 1: I don't write these rules, and I'm not in charge
Speaker 1: of saying whether this should be allowed or not. And
Speaker 1: this is just how the cookie crumbles, and so low
Speaker 1: cast is shut down and it goes from five to
Speaker 1: fifty a month that you paid for that as a donation,
Speaker 1: or maybe you just watch the ads too, you might
Speaker 1: need to now spend twenty thirty forty fifty sixty seventy
Speaker 1: eighty dollars on a streaming service. So it's not ideal
Speaker 1: in any way, shape or form, but that's what's happening.
Speaker 1: And so if you're if you're looking for KTLA, you
Speaker 1: can download the KTLA Plus app. If you're looking for
Speaker 1: other stations, a lot of them do stream for free.
Speaker 1: Like I know that, I think CBS does. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure about the other ones. I just don't watch them
Speaker 1: enough to know. But you know, there are ways, there
Speaker 1: are streaming services to get this. And at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, get an antenna. If you really want
Speaker 1: this stuff for free, spend the you know, fifty bucks,
Speaker 1: buy an antenna. The company that I like is Glide
Speaker 1: gl No, it's not Glide. Antennas Direct is the one
Speaker 1: I like, and they also own Mohu. Now Mohu, So
Speaker 1: get an antenna installed in your house and then if
Speaker 1: you really want to have a DVR functionality, you can
Speaker 1: get a thing called Tableau t a b l oh
Speaker 1: and that can give you GVR functionality. And by the way,
Speaker 1: all that the antenna plus tableau. Yeah, you have to
Speaker 1: pay one time out of pocket, but after that it's
Speaker 1: all there's no monthly fees for that for the basic services.
Speaker 1: So that's what's happening there. And yeah, Rance says, good morning,
Speaker 1: Rich I'm a retired welder, and that should answer it.
Speaker 1: I have a question. I don't know if that makes sense.
Speaker 1: I have an iMac now, but it's about four years
Speaker 1: old and getting slower. What is the best computer for me?
Speaker 1: I just do a little banking, mostly search. The Mac
Speaker 1: is easy for me. Are they still a little safer
Speaker 1: than the others? Please help this old man, Thank you, Rance, Rance.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you need a new iMac. Four
Speaker 1: years old is not that old for an iMac. I
Speaker 1: think what you should do with this iMac is get
Speaker 1: someone that you trust, get someone that you know, get
Speaker 1: some help and actually just reformat this and reinstall the
Speaker 1: operating system fresh. So yeah, your computer might be a
Speaker 1: little bit slower than was from day one, but four
Speaker 1: years old is for what you're doing. If you're doing
Speaker 1: just a little banking and mostly search, you don't really
Speaker 1: need a high powered, horsepower system to do this. I
Speaker 1: think four years old, you could probably get another two
Speaker 1: three years out of this computer, So that would be
Speaker 1: my first choice. Find someone that's knowledgeable about this and say, hey,
Speaker 1: can you do a clean reinstall of my operating system
Speaker 1: on my iMac? That is the question to ask, and
Speaker 1: you can bring it to a local place. Go on Yelp,
Speaker 1: look for a local Mac shop and they should be
Speaker 1: able to do that for you. You can also, depending
Speaker 1: on the Mac the iMac, see if you can add
Speaker 1: memory to this. I know it's been a while since
Speaker 1: they've allowed that, but if that's a possibility, you can
Speaker 1: do that. You know, it could be your internet connection
Speaker 1: that's slow. But if you're going to buy a new computer,
Speaker 1: I would just recommend going with the base new iMac,
Speaker 1: which is the iMac M one, and that thing's just
Speaker 1: going to blow you away because it is it is
Speaker 1: extremely fast, and it's going to be way faster than
Speaker 1: your old computer. But again, I don't necessarily think you
Speaker 1: need a new computer. This is a problem that could
Speaker 1: be solved with maybe just redoing the software, because you know,
Speaker 1: over time our computers get kind of bogged down with
Speaker 1: all the little fragments of things that you know is
Speaker 1: on there, all the little you know, the software gets bloated.
Speaker 1: You delete stuff it's still on there, parts of it.
Speaker 1: The other thing you might do is just change your
Speaker 1: web browser. You can maybe try changing to Safari or
Speaker 1: Microsoft Edge if you're not already using one of those.
Speaker 1: If you're using Chrome, Chrome is notoriously slow on a
Speaker 1: lot of Mac computers and computers in general, so especially
Speaker 1: the more things you have installed, the more extensions you've got,
Speaker 1: So you can switch to Safari and see if that
Speaker 1: works for you. That might just feel like a new
Speaker 1: computer right there. But again, I personally would go through
Speaker 1: and delete everything on this computer, back it up of
Speaker 1: course first, and then do a clean install, and then
Speaker 1: just just copy your files back. Don't do like a
Speaker 1: restore from backup on time machine, because that's just gonna
Speaker 1: put all the garbage back on there. So I would
Speaker 1: not do that. The other thing you can do is
Speaker 1: run an app like Clean my Mac, and that might
Speaker 1: give you a little new lease on life with this computer.
Speaker 1: Clean my Mac is the program that I like, and
Speaker 1: it will go through and scan your computer for old files,
Speaker 1: big files stuff. You know, it can help you uninstall
Speaker 1: all your programs that you don't need. So that's the
Speaker 1: kind of the light way of doing this. But I
Speaker 1: would definitely squeeze another year about out of this computer,
Speaker 1: at least a year. I think you can get two
Speaker 1: more years out of this computer, all right. There's some
Speaker 1: new rules over in China when it comes to online
Speaker 1: video games, and this definitely got people up. In a
Speaker 1: little hubbub on my Facebook page, people were talking about
Speaker 1: these rules because over in China, apparently they have a
Speaker 1: big problem with kids being addicted to video games, and honestly,
Speaker 1: I don't think it's much better here in the US.
Speaker 1: I know in my house it is a struggle with
Speaker 1: these games. I know I've talked about this before, but
Speaker 1: roadblocks is blocked, so there's not even roadblocks in my house,
Speaker 1: and it's still a problem. The only thing my kids
Speaker 1: really play is Minecraft, and once they get on there,
Speaker 1: they can't stop. I mean, my older kid is a
Speaker 1: little bit better than my little kid, but it's a
Speaker 1: real problem. And I get it. They love it. They
Speaker 1: love what they're doing, and I think it's cute. And
Speaker 1: I think it's fun, but it's this weird thing that
Speaker 1: gets over on them that they just can't stop playing it.
Speaker 1: They just want to play forever. And my wife and
Speaker 1: I joke, I mean, last night, it was kind of
Speaker 1: an off night, so we let the kids play their
Speaker 1: iPads and eat dinner at the table with their iPads. Well,
Speaker 1: my wife and I watched the TV show and that's
Speaker 1: kind of a treat. But the reality is we just joke,
Speaker 1: We go, we don't even know our kids are in
Speaker 1: this home because they are in the playroom playing the
Speaker 1: video games and they just are so they just don't
Speaker 1: even care about anything else at that point. Once they're
Speaker 1: on these games, it's like they can just play forever
Speaker 1: until we're like, Okay, it's time, it's over. And there's
Speaker 1: been times when we say it's over and it gets
Speaker 1: pretty messy. You know. Kids get angry, they get mad,
Speaker 1: they call us names, they throw their iPad And I
Speaker 1: am sure I am not the only parent listening to
Speaker 1: this or the only parent that's experienced this. I think
Speaker 1: this happens a lot, and I think that a lot
Speaker 1: of parents the default is just to say it's just
Speaker 1: easier to let this go. And to not deal with
Speaker 1: it and to let my kid play and give my
Speaker 1: kid on access as much as they want. But that
Speaker 1: is I think that that's a problem. And so anyway,
Speaker 1: here over in China, they've got new rules. So here
Speaker 1: are the rules for online video games in China. No
Speaker 1: playing during the week and on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.
Speaker 1: No Friday, Saturday, Sunday. You get one hour a day
Speaker 1: and week on public holidays you get three hours a day.
Speaker 1: No more than three total hours during the week. And
Speaker 1: by the way, there's also times you can play, so
Speaker 1: you have to play, you can't play past a certain time.
Speaker 1: This is weird. It doesn't really make sense what they
Speaker 1: mentioned here in the Wall Street journale. They say they
Speaker 1: will only be permitted to play between eight pm and
Speaker 1: nine pm, So eight pm at night on Friday night
Speaker 1: to nine pm the next day. I don't know if
Speaker 1: that makes sense, but so yeah, they also have to
Speaker 1: register these online video games with an anti addiction system,
Speaker 1: and then users have to register using their real names
Speaker 1: and government issued IDs. Now this is China, so yeah,
Speaker 1: they have a little bit more of a hold over
Speaker 1: the people there that you know, they can't really it's
Speaker 1: a whole different world over there. Let's put it that way.
Speaker 1: So these rules are in effect. I'm sure there are
Speaker 1: ways of circumventing these rules, but this, this is what
Speaker 1: the baseline is. Now. I'm not advocating for these rules
Speaker 1: in the US. I don't. I don't think that, you know,
Speaker 1: we need to be this drastic, but I think that
Speaker 1: it is a challenge, and I don't know what the
Speaker 1: answer is. I think that helping kids limit definitely, putting
Speaker 1: those limits on the devices really helps. You know. We
Speaker 1: use screen time and there's a device called Circle that
Speaker 1: we've used in the past which is really good. And
Speaker 1: then when it comes to YouTube, I block it throughout
Speaker 1: the week and then on Friday I unlock it all right,
Speaker 1: unblock it at a network level, so in on my router,
Speaker 1: on my euro I just say, you know, block YouTube
Speaker 1: all week, and then on the weekends it's unblocked. Now,
Speaker 1: the pain about doing that is that it affects me.
Speaker 1: So I can't look up a YouTube video on my
Speaker 1: Google homes during the week, and I can't just sit
Speaker 1: on the couch. I can't tell you how many times
Speaker 1: I've sat on the couch and said, oh, let me
Speaker 1: look at my YouTube subscriptions and ah, sorry, can't access
Speaker 1: the network. And it's like, uh all because of my kids,
Speaker 1: Like I don't get to enjoy my YouTube that I
Speaker 1: want to watch, and then I got to go into
Speaker 1: the app and I gotta unlock it, and I gotta
Speaker 1: do this and that, and it's a whole big thing.
Speaker 1: And the best part is that when my kid, he
Speaker 1: checks every single day to see if YouTube just happens
Speaker 1: to be unlocked. So if I unlock it to watch
Speaker 1: something in the afternoon and I forget to relock it,
Speaker 1: he'll he'll find it immediately when he gets home from
Speaker 1: school and he's like, oh, I'm watching YouTube because it
Speaker 1: was unlocked. I'm like, how'd you figure that out? He's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I just check every day. So these kids are there.
Speaker 1: There's something else. Now. When I was a kid, yes,
Speaker 1: I got I got the Nintendo thumb from playing RC
Speaker 1: pro Am so much and Zelda and all these different
Speaker 1: games and Super Mario Brothers. But there was a limit
Speaker 1: to this, like it wasn't online, your friends weren't always online.
Speaker 1: These games are much stickier these days because you go
Speaker 1: online and some of your close friends might be playing
Speaker 1: at that point, or some of your friends that you've
Speaker 1: made online are playing, and guess what, there's always someone playing,
Speaker 1: and so there's always an excuse for my kids. Oh well,
Speaker 1: Jay Dog seventy four twenty nine is on and I'm like,
Speaker 1: who's that? Like one of my friends on Minecraft. So
Speaker 1: it's just an uphill battle for parents. But I think
Speaker 1: that putting some of these things in place is a
Speaker 1: good thing for parents to do because I think it
Speaker 1: really really helps. All right, let's get to another question.
Speaker 1: Felix says, Hey, Rich, I wanted to see if you
Speaker 1: can help me with a suggestion or recommend a good
Speaker 1: Wi Fi router. I just recently bumped up my internet
Speaker 1: speed on AT and T to one thousand megabits per
Speaker 1: second one gig. I'm using the Wi Fi modum that
Speaker 1: AIGHT and T gives you. If I have it hardwired
Speaker 1: to my computer, I get about eight to nine hundred down,
Speaker 1: But on Wi Fi get one twenty, I unplug it,
Speaker 1: reset it, I still get the same. So what would
Speaker 1: you recommend? Would you suggest a Wi Fi router to
Speaker 1: get faster wireless speeds? Thank you, Felix. So, Felix, a
Speaker 1: couple things. Number one, AT and T just introduced an extender,
Speaker 1: and so I would get that if I were you,
Speaker 1: And let's see if I can find it. Uh, where
Speaker 1: is it? Oh gosh, oh, here we go. Let's see
Speaker 1: what it's called. It is called the AT and T
Speaker 1: Wi Fi six Gateway and Extender. So I this just
Speaker 1: launched on August fourth, and so what I would do
Speaker 1: is I would call AT and T and I would
Speaker 1: ask them to give you this AT and T Wi
Speaker 1: Fi six Gateway and Extender. And that's the easiest solution
Speaker 1: because AT and T already gives you your Internet and
Speaker 1: this is the proper term, is the BGW three twenty
Speaker 1: and so I think that's the easiest way to do
Speaker 1: it because that way, you are going through AT and T.
Speaker 1: They can't give any gripes about you know, oh we
Speaker 1: can't help you because you're not using our router. And
Speaker 1: so it's a lot easier. Now. I don't know how
Speaker 1: much this costs, but the Wi Fi six Gateway lets
Speaker 1: you connect more more devices on the network, gives you
Speaker 1: better coverage. It's triband and Wi Fi six enabled, and
Speaker 1: it says you get seventy five percent improved download speeds
Speaker 1: and ninety percent when you're using a Wi Fi six
Speaker 1: enabled devices plus connectivity in your entire home. Wi Fi
Speaker 1: six devices include the iPhone eleven and the S ten,
Speaker 1: which means it'll also include devices past that as well.
Speaker 1: The air Ties Wi Fi six Extender seamlessly extend. It
Speaker 1: connects you with your Wi Fi gateway to create a
Speaker 1: mesh network throughout your house. So I would do that.
Speaker 1: That would be my solution. If you don't want to
Speaker 1: go with AT and T solution, then I would go
Speaker 1: with Eero e e R Eero Pro is going to
Speaker 1: give you that faster speed. That's what I have. I
Speaker 1: do not get my one gig speed around my house.
Speaker 1: I get closer to five hundred, which is about half
Speaker 1: of what I would ideally be getting. But that's kind
Speaker 1: of what the reality is with Wi Fi. You get
Speaker 1: kind of half of what you're paying for around the house.
Speaker 1: So I think that the AT and T solution is
Speaker 1: much simpler, much easier, and just more straightforward. And I
Speaker 1: don't know how much they I don't know how much
Speaker 1: they charge for that, but that's my indication of what
Speaker 1: I think you should do because it's just the easiest.
Speaker 1: I also did a story on something called Villo vil
Speaker 1: Oh and it's a mesh network system for just sixty bucks.
Speaker 1: Now that does not go up to the full speed.
Speaker 1: You're not gonna get the full wired speed or the
Speaker 1: full You're not gonna get the full one gigabit throughout
Speaker 1: your house. This is probably gonna be closer to a
Speaker 1: five hundred solution. So if you want the full, I
Speaker 1: would go with what AT and T is offering you.
Speaker 1: All right, let's talk about Facebook and Instagram. You might
Speaker 1: get a notification on your Instagram that they need to
Speaker 1: know your data birth. Why are they doing this, Well,
Speaker 1: they're trying to weed out situations and posts and advertising
Speaker 1: that might not be appropriate for people under eighteen. Now,
Speaker 1: a lot of people have already given their data birth
Speaker 1: to fate Instagram, and so it's probably not really even
Speaker 1: a thing for me. I looked in my settings and
Speaker 1: sure enough, my Instagram already had my data birth from Facebook,
Speaker 1: and so they share that with Facebook shares that data
Speaker 1: with Instagram. So if you want to check to see
Speaker 1: if your data birth is already on your Instagram, just
Speaker 1: go to Instagram, then Settings, then account, then personal information again,
Speaker 1: Instagram Settings, Account, personal Information, and does it say data
Speaker 1: birth if it's already there you're not going to get
Speaker 1: this prompt. But what I thought was interesting about this
Speaker 1: prompt is not only are they going to let users
Speaker 1: kind of dismiss it a couple of times before it's required,
Speaker 1: they can tell if you're lying when you answer this
Speaker 1: question because they're using artificial intelligence, so they're looking at
Speaker 1: the posts that you have made or when people comment
Speaker 1: happy birthday, and that's just one signal they're using. And
Speaker 1: so when you do this, they will and you say,
Speaker 1: let's say you say you're eighteen on this thing, or
Speaker 1: let's say you're let's say you're a thirteen year old
Speaker 1: and you say you're eighteen, and Facebook's like, hmmm, I
Speaker 1: don't know, because a lot of people are wishing you
Speaker 1: a happy seventeenth birthday last year so or sorry, a
Speaker 1: happy fourteen birthday, whatever, happy thirteenth. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Their data will go through and then if you lie,
Speaker 1: they will say, I don't know, we don't think that
Speaker 1: you're actually telling the truth. So we are actually going
Speaker 1: to request for you to verify your age in a
Speaker 1: different way, which they didn't say how, but you know
Speaker 1: that could be uploading an ID or whatever. So Facebook's
Speaker 1: getting real serious about this stuff, and I think we're
Speaker 1: seeing these social media companies get more and more serious
Speaker 1: about protecting users and putting in safeguards and getting a
Speaker 1: little just tightening things up just a little bit because
Speaker 1: there is always that threat of government regulation, and so
Speaker 1: far these companies have really had a lot of leeway
Speaker 1: in what they do and they want to do things.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like I think I've talked about this before.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like the movie the movie rating system
Speaker 1: that is voluntary from the movie company. So the companies
Speaker 1: that make movies tell us what the rating of the
Speaker 1: movie is, who it's appropriate for, and you know, that's
Speaker 1: that's that's an interesting place to be, and of course
Speaker 1: it's an advantageous place to be because they keep pushing
Speaker 1: the envelope. Right. A PG thirteen movie is just a
Speaker 1: little racier than a PG thirteen movie from the nineties
Speaker 1: or the eighties, or if they even had. I forget
Speaker 1: what the first movie was that was PG thirteen. I
Speaker 1: think it was. My friend told me it was like
Speaker 1: Indiana Jones or something. I don't know. Don't quote me
Speaker 1: on that one, but anyway, so that's what's happening with
Speaker 1: the Happy birthday stuff and the Facebook posts. They don't
Speaker 1: care about your birthday because they want to wish you
Speaker 1: a happy birthday. They care because a they want to
Speaker 1: be able to target more ads towards you, but they
Speaker 1: want to be able to target less appropriate things or
Speaker 1: I guess things that are not appropriate towards miners. They
Speaker 1: want to make sure that they're trying to keep that
Speaker 1: stuff away from them as much as possible. There's another
Speaker 1: place you might see this happy birth or this birthday
Speaker 1: question is when you look at a post that might
Speaker 1: be sensitive or graphic. So when you look at one
Speaker 1: of these posts, they may ask you, hey, before you
Speaker 1: look at this post, let's just verify your birthday real quick.
Speaker 1: And again, if you lie, they'll say, hmmm, that's interesting
Speaker 1: because our data tells us that you're not this age.
Speaker 1: And again, I just think it's really fascinating that Facebook
Speaker 1: and Instagram are using artificial intelligence to kind of figure
Speaker 1: out how old we are, and most of us just
Speaker 1: hand over this information by ourselves. But the reality is
Speaker 1: if they're using AI to do this, just think of
Speaker 1: all the different things they're using AI for. It does
Speaker 1: not end at this. There is so much stuff that
Speaker 1: they are that they are using AI for. It's just
Speaker 1: it's pretty pretty unbelievable, just amazing actually and also kind
Speaker 1: of scary. All right, AJ says, hey, Rich, what are
Speaker 1: your recommendations to back up a MacBook Pro computer wirelessly?
Speaker 1: I've been using Western Digital MyCloud. It's not stable. I
Speaker 1: appreciate your content and enjoy your podcast, thanks aj. Aj.
Speaker 1: Here's what I would do with that Western Digital MyCloud.
Speaker 1: I would format that drive and I would set it
Speaker 1: up as a time machine. And time machine has the
Speaker 1: ability to link up wirelessly. That my cloud should have
Speaker 1: a Wi Fi network built in. It should give you
Speaker 1: access to that time machine drive through your Mac. So
Speaker 1: those steps once again, make sure that whatever's on your
Speaker 1: computer is already backed up somewhere because you're gonna erase
Speaker 1: this MyCloud. Then I would format the MyCloud on your
Speaker 1: Windows computer as a as a drive with a time machine,
Speaker 1: you know, open up time machine, it says, hey, do
Speaker 1: you want to use this drive as a time machine drive,
Speaker 1: and then you know, connect that that my my cloud
Speaker 1: drive to your computer wirelessly and it will just it
Speaker 1: will just back up to that that using time Machine.
Speaker 1: I know I'm totally screwing this up, but The time
Speaker 1: Machine is a feature on the Mac and it can
Speaker 1: be done by plugging in an external hard drive, or
Speaker 1: it can also be done wirelessly. As long as you
Speaker 1: set up a drive as a time Machine drive, once
Speaker 1: the Mac sees that drive on the network, it will
Speaker 1: start wirelessly backing things up to that drive. So the
Speaker 1: trick here is to make sure that the MyCloud drive
Speaker 1: has a time Machine set up on it, which will
Speaker 1: require you doing that through your Mac and then also
Speaker 1: being on your network. And I believe that's the software
Speaker 1: through the Western Digital MyCloud software. You're not using their
Speaker 1: software to actually back up, but you are using their
Speaker 1: software to just kind of get this drive on the
Speaker 1: wireless network, if that makes sense. So I've done this
Speaker 1: in the past. It's simple, it's pretty painless, and anytime
Speaker 1: you open up your MacBook computer it will start syncing
Speaker 1: to the wireless time Machine. I've stopped using time Machine
Speaker 1: these days because quite honestly, all my stuff is in
Speaker 1: the cloud and so I don't really need a backup
Speaker 1: of anything on my computer. In fact, if my computer
Speaker 1: hard drive ever crashes, I see it as a blessing
Speaker 1: into because I get to set my computer up fresh
Speaker 1: and start over. Again, knock on wood. I hope that
Speaker 1: doesn't happen. I don't really want that to happen, but
Speaker 1: that's the way I see it, and so yeah, that's
Speaker 1: that's my thing. All right. Let's do one more question
Speaker 1: here before we go. Marty says, Hey, Rich, can you
Speaker 1: recommend an authenticator app for seniors? It has to be
Speaker 1: user friendly and not complicated. Thank you, Marty, sent from
Speaker 1: my iPhone. So there's a couple authenticator apps that I
Speaker 1: would recommend. I Marty number one. I love that you
Speaker 1: are looking into an authenticator app because two factor authentication
Speaker 1: is the most important thing you can enable on any
Speaker 1: and all of your accounts that support it. What two
Speaker 1: factor authentication is is this, you have a password on
Speaker 1: your account. That password is probably easily hackable by a hacker.
Speaker 1: They can get into your account in a million different
Speaker 1: ways if you just have a password, especially if you're
Speaker 1: using that password everywhere. But when you bring an authentication
Speaker 1: app into the mix, or two factor authentication, even if
Speaker 1: a hacker logs into your account, what happens is it says, okay,
Speaker 1: you logged in. That's cool. Now what's the the two
Speaker 1: factor authentication number? We just texted to you or that's
Speaker 1: displayed on your app, and the hacker goes ah, foiled again,
Speaker 1: and then they pull off their face like they do
Speaker 1: in Scooby Do at the end and they go, oh,
Speaker 1: get you kids. And so you foil them because chances
Speaker 1: are they don't have access to both your password and
Speaker 1: your smartphone, and they can unlock your smartphone and they
Speaker 1: can get the text and they can type in this
Speaker 1: secondary code. Now, SMS works, but it's not as good
Speaker 1: because SMS can be hacked as well, it can be redirected.
Speaker 1: You know, it's just not as good. But these authentication
Speaker 1: apps are pretty good because they live on your phone,
Speaker 1: they're linked up to the website, and they just generate
Speaker 1: a different code every thirty seconds or so. And so
Speaker 1: what you do is you go into something like let's
Speaker 1: say Facebook, you set up two factor authentication, and you
Speaker 1: link it up to this little app, usually by scanning
Speaker 1: a QR code from the app on your phone screen,
Speaker 1: and then it says, okay, here's your Facebook code, and
Speaker 1: it changes every thirty seconds, and when you go to
Speaker 1: log into Facebook, you'll log in with your password, but
Speaker 1: then it says, okay, now can you please enter the
Speaker 1: code from your authenticator app, and chances are only you
Speaker 1: have access to that authentication app. And so you open
Speaker 1: the authentication app on your phone, you look at the
Speaker 1: code and you type it in and Facebook says, okay,
Speaker 1: you now typed in your password. You now typed in
Speaker 1: the authentication code, and we're going to grant you access
Speaker 1: to this account. And that is the most secure way
Speaker 1: I know of for getting into accounts. Now there might
Speaker 1: be some even more secure ways, but they're much more complicated,
Speaker 1: and for that reason, just use one of these apps.
Speaker 1: So the three that I like are called Authyauty, and
Speaker 1: then Google has one called Google Authenticator, and then Microsoft
Speaker 1: has one as well, and it's the same. They're they're
Speaker 1: all the same. They're basically all the same. Just pick
Speaker 1: one that you like. If you want to use Microsoft
Speaker 1: Mobile Phone Authenticator authenticator app that works. If you want
Speaker 1: to use the Google Authenticator that one works, or you
Speaker 1: can use Authie which is kind of a third party one.
Speaker 1: But either way, just just pick one of these and
Speaker 1: use it and that's it. Now. The caveat to this
Speaker 1: is you don't want to lose access to this authentication app,
Speaker 1: because if you do, it's kind of a pain. So
Speaker 1: when you set up this process of authentication two factor authentication.
Speaker 1: Each website is going to give you a list of
Speaker 1: backup codes. Keep those codes in a safe place, even
Speaker 1: if you have to print them out and put them
Speaker 1: in a file somewhere in your house. That I wouldn't
Speaker 1: recommend that, but that's you know, if you have to
Speaker 1: do that, do it. What I would recommend is copying
Speaker 1: and pasting those codes into your password management app, which
Speaker 1: I hope you're using as well. So those are the
Speaker 1: things that I would recommend. And you know, you got
Speaker 1: to secure these accounts. You got to just get these
Speaker 1: things secured because hackers are working twenty four to seven
Speaker 1: to get access to your accounts. And believe me, they
Speaker 1: are very very smart and they will just try anything
Speaker 1: to get access to your accounts. I don't know what
Speaker 1: they want access for. I mean, there's clearly an endgame
Speaker 1: that you know, they can do a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: with your personal data. But that's a whole nother conversation.
Speaker 1: That's going to do it for this episode of the show.
Speaker 1: If you would like to submit a question for me
Speaker 1: to answer, just go to my Facebook page Facebook dot
Speaker 1: com slash Rich on Tech, Hit the Big blue send
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Speaker 1: You can find me on social media at rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: I'm on Instagram, I'm on Facebook, I'm on Twitter, and
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Speaker 1: can watch all of my TV segments on demand. My
Speaker 1: name is Richdmiro. Thanks so much for listening. There are
Speaker 1: so many ways you can spend an hour of your time.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you spending it with me. I'll talk to
Speaker 1: you real soon.